Fixing common issues

Most "something's wrong" moments have a simple cause. This page walks through the ones we hear about most, with the symptom, what's usually behind it, and how to put it right. If your issue isn't here, jump to Getting help.

The floor isn't updating live — I have to refresh

What you're seeing: a party gets seated or a course advances on one device, but another screen still shows the old picture until you reload the page.

What's behind it: TableStack keeps every screen in sync over a live connection to the internet. If a device drops offline — flaky Wi-Fi at the host stand, a tablet that went to sleep, a page left open on a network that changed — it stops receiving updates until it reconnects.

How to fix it:

• Check that the device is actually online, and on a reliable network. The host stand and any kitchen screen should be on your best connection.
• Reload the page once to catch it up; from then on it stays live on its own.
• If a screen was asleep or in the background, wake it and bring the TableStack page back to the front.

There's nothing to configure per device — as long as it's online and on the page, it syncs automatically. See Real-time sync for the full picture of what stays live.

Confirmation emails or texts aren't arriving

What you're seeing: a guest says they never got their confirmation, change notice, or reminder.

What's behind it: two different things to check, depending on email vs. text.

• Email always sends. If a guest didn't get theirs, check the spelling of their email on the booking, and ask them to look in spam. Messages are also sent in the background (queued), so a confirmation can arrive a moment after the booking rather than instantly.
• Text messages (SMS) are a separate switch. Texting is only active once the platform has an SMS provider turned on for your account. Until then, texts aren't sent — the booking still works and the email still goes out, but no SMS is delivered. A guest also only gets a text if they have a phone number on file.

How to fix it:

• Confirm the guest's email and phone are correct on the reservation.
• If you're expecting texts and none are arriving, they may not be switched on for your account yet — reach out through Getting help to have SMS enabled.

For exactly which messages send and when, see Notifications and reminders.

A guest isn't showing up in search

What you're seeing: you type a name into the guest picker and the person you expect doesn't appear.

What's behind it: guest search matches on name, email, and phone. A new guest is searchable right away, so a truly missing result is almost always a spelling or number mismatch — or a guest whose profile was anonymized after a data-deletion request (those are intentionally hidden).

How to fix it:

• Try a shorter fragment — the first few letters of the name, or the last few digits of the phone.
• Search by email or phone instead of name; those are unique and avoid spelling issues.
• Remember the guest book is shared across your whole organization, so a regular from another venue in your group is already in there — no need to re-add them.
• If a guest asked to have their data removed, their record is anonymized and won't come back in search by design. See Guest privacy and data.

My floor design or screenshot import didn't change anything

What you're seeing: you uploaded a screenshot of your floor plan expecting TableStack to rebuild the tables for you, and nothing happened.

What's behind it: rebuilding a floor from an uploaded image is an AI-powered Pro feature that's off by default. It only appears once it's been switched on for your venue. Without it, you build your floor by dropping tables from the preset palette — which is always available.

How to fix it:

• Build your floor from the palette (Deuce, Four Top, Booth, Bar Seat, and so on) — see Designing your floor. Everything stays editable after placement.
• If you want the screenshot-to-floor helper enabled, ask through Getting help; it's a Pro capability and is turned on per venue.

Availability shows nothing, or fewer slots than expected

What you're seeing: the booking page (or your own booking screen) offers no times, or far fewer than you'd expect for that day.

What's behind it: availability is calculated from your scheduling rules, not guessed. If a service period isn't open for that day, if turn times are long, if the per-slot pacing cap is low, or if there's a closure on the calendar, the engine will honestly show fewer or no times.

How to fix it — check these settings:

• Service periods: is the venue actually set to take bookings on that day and time?
• Closures: is there a holiday or private-event closure covering that date?
• Turn times: long turn times hold tables longer, leaving fewer openings.
• Pacing cap: a low cap on covers per slot deliberately limits how many parties book the same time.

Walk through all of these in Scheduling and turn times, and see How availability is calculated for why the engine answers the way it does.

Still stuck?

If you've tried the fix above and it's still not right, don't spend the shift fighting it — head to Getting help and reach out. A quick note about what you expected versus what you saw gets you sorted fastest.